A seven-week occupation of a Cambridge NHS mental health clinic in Britain threatened with closure is having more success than past campaigning - is this the way forward?

Service users of a Cambridge NHS mental health clinic, ‘Lifeworks’, have
been occupying its Tenison Road building for nearly 8 weeks, in a defiant
battle to stop its closure.

The service has been offering vital support for those with Personality Disorder
and Borderline Personality Disorder for the past 12 years. But the
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Foundation Trust now plans to close it as part
of a wider service redesign.

According to both NHS England and local MP Julian Huppert “the
health system in Cambridgeshire is one of the worst funded in the country” but
its trust is facing a further £6.5 million budget cut next year.

The occupiers won an important victory earlier this month when
local councillors asked the mental health trust to reopen Lifeworks while
they consult users, something which they had previously failed to do.

Mental health services across Cambridgeshire have aready been hit hard
by years of cuts. Seven years ago swathes of mental health beds and wards
across the county were closed down, including beds, wards, rehab units, a
therapeutic community, community services and day centres. 27 Consultant
Psychiatrists wrote condemning the cuts. Health workers, and users groups
campaigned hard. But the Trust pressed ahead with the cuts and imposed a
'gagging order' to prevent staff talking to the media.

The fight to defend the remaining NHS mental health services in
Cambridge has now stepped up to new levels of resistance.

If Lifeworks closes, there will be little left to support its users. Other
remaining local organisations have said they do not have the capacity to
support any more users.

The Foundation Trust says that service users will be offered a new ‘GP-led
pathway’ - but according to service users, only 1 out of 10 current Lifeworks
users will get a referral to this new ‘pathway’.

And even those lucky enough to be referred will only get it for 18-24
months. Most users state that their condition is lifelong, not time limited.

Further cuts loom. There are plans to close Art and Music Therapy
and other services in Cambridgeshire. There is very little evidence that these
closures are ‘clinically led’.

Most of the service users GPs are not even aware the cuts are happening
til they hear it from their own patients. This is a long way from GPs being put
‘at the centre of decicion making’ as the government claimed its 2012 ‘reforms’
did.

Mental health trusts across the country face a crisis. They are being
forced to make around 20% more savings in next years budget than hospitals
and other parts of the health service.

The fightback has been largely led by women, who make up around 95% of
those who use Lifeworks.

Initially planned as a '2 hour sit-in', the occupation has been going
strong for the past 7 weeks with no signs of ending. The decision to occupy was
taken after service users were sent a generic letter advising of the closure.

Ann Robinson said 'We were told that Lifeworks was for life, hence the
name. We are really angry that nobody bothered to speak to us about the
cuts and that they have not consulted with service users, carers or even GPs.
Mine did not even know about the closure until I told them and it is them that
we are supposed to be referred back to.”

Chair of Scrutiny Cllr Killian Bourke said:

“The proper consultation with service users
has simply not taken place. The consultation that did take place was extremely
high level and made no specific mention of closing Lifeworks. Services users
only learned about the closure of the service four weeks ago, that is why they
have staged a sit-in.

This clearly isn't good enough. The Health
Act requires commissioners and providers to ensure that service users are
properly involved in decisions about the planning and provision of services. Therefore
I am urging the Mental Health Trust to stop the closure of Lifeworks while we
get to the bottom of this and service users are consulted.”

Another service user explained that Lifeworks saved her life. She
told how she had been “in a mess”, with no contact or support from mental
health services. Lifeworks offered her a 'lifeline”, including crisis
management clinics and other sources of vital support.

She fears that the closure of Lifeworks will leave her vulnerable and
isolated. She has already had her benefits cut, including through the ‘bedroom
tax’. Many of the other services she used have now gone. She
described Lifeworks as being all she has got left.

Similar stories are heard from many other service users.

Under pressure from service users, supporters and Councillors, the
Trust has admitted “we could have
done more to engage with service users”. It says it is “now planning to have
further discussions with all those affected. All options over the future of
Lifeworks remain open.”

But they have added

“These discussions cannot take place however
until the people who are occupying Tenison Road have vacated the building.”

Users remain defiant.

“We will not be ending the occupation until we have assurances
about the long-term future of Lifeworks,” says Ann Robinson.

The occupation has received wide community support, with
demonstrations and petitions organised by trade unionists, health workers,
charities and community groups.

The occupiers have had to teach themselves to navigate the bureaucratic
tangle of Scrutiny Committees, Clinical Commissioning Groups and the like. They
have bravely stated their case in meetings in their to attempt to stop cuts and
hold those responsible to account.

And they are refusing to be intimidated, despite having been sent
letters accusing them of “criminal” behaviour. The Trust also sent in five men
to confront two female service users who were alone in the building at that
time.

The women say the Trust seems more concerned with the building than
with their health and well-being through this difficult and stressful time.

Health bosses are clearly rattled. Medical director of the Trust
Chess Denman accused the council of a “hostile and personal attack”
for asking tough questions at the scrutiny committee on the decision to
close Lifework

The scrutiny committee has demanded that the Trust make them aware
of any future planned service changes and has established a working group to
scrutinise and address the lack of consultation.

It has asked that the Trust reopen Lifeworks while this process is
carried out.

The women occupying Lifeworks have achieved more for mental health
services in Cambridgeshire than anybody else has done for decades.

SteveSweeneyis a Regional Organiser for GMB and a formerMentalHealthNurse. He has been
involved in many NHS campaigns including opposing the privatisations of
Hinchingbrooke Hospital and of almost £1 billion of NHS services in Cambridgeshire.

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